Hierarchical representations are common in many artificial intelligence tasks, such as classification of satellites in orbit. Representing and reasoning on hierarchies is difficult, however, as they can be large, deep and constantly evolving. Although probabilistic programming provides the flexibility to model many situations, current probabilistic programming languages (PPL) do not adequately ...

Intelligence analysts rely on reports that are subject to many varieties of uncertainty, such as noise in sensors; deception or error by human sources; or cultural misunderstanding. To be effective, intelligence analysts must understand the relationship between reports, the events or situations reported upon, and the hypotheses of interest to which those events or situations are evidential. Com...

An important aspect of intelligence is the ability to switch perspectives. In the course of reasoning about a particular subject matter, it can be convenient to change from one perspective of the subject matter to another perspective, which is often at a different level of abstraction. For example, in some situations it may be advantageous to view a building as a collection of floors and in oth...

(Fam Med 2000;32(5):307-9.) Editor’s Note: In this second of a two-part series on difficult learning situations, John Langlois, MD, and Sarah Thach, MPH, of the Mountain Area Health Education Center (MAHEC) Division of Family Medicine in Asheville, NC, provide us with information and tips on managing difficult learning situations. The content of the column is based on materials developed as a p...

Over the last ten years we have been involved in the development of a formal framework for decision making and reasoning under uncertainty based on "argumentation". The latter provides a way of managing uncertainty which differs from probabilistic inference and is particularly valuable in those many practical situations where uncertainty cannot be quantified. Recently we have been applying argu...

INTRODUCTION Airway management is a fundamental practice of anaesthesia and tracheal intubation is frequently required to ensure adequate airway control. Fibre optic techniques represent a dramatic advance in the management of the difficult intubation. The attending anaesthesiologist faces a challenge in managing a difficult airway in emergency situations. The traditional rapid sequence intubat...